BEIJING: A stinging editorial published by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily on Sunday (Jan 25) has cast fresh light on the political gravity of the investigation into China’s top generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, with particularly harsh wording that analysts say goes beyond how previous senior military purges have been framed.
Published on the front page of its physical edition, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese armed forces accused Zhang and Liu of having “seriously trampled on and undermined the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman” – a post held by President Xi Jinping, who sits at the apex of China’s military command structure.
It came a day after Beijing announced that both men were being probed for “serious violations of discipline and law”, a common euphemism for corruption, in what has become one of the most consequential cases to engulf the PLA’s senior leadership in years.
“You can feel the bitterness in the paragraph,” Yang Zi, a research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told CNA.
He highlighted that only a small portion of the editorial focused on corruption, while most of it read like “a list of grievances” centred on Zhang and Liu allegedly chipping away at the authority of the CMC chairman.
“It’s definitely … much stronger,” Yang said, referring to the use of the phrase “seriously trampled on”. “It reflects a very severe breakdown in the relationship.”
Zhang, 75, is the first-ranking vice chair of the CMC, China’s top military decision-making body, and one of Xi’s longest-serving allies in the armed forces.
Liu, 61, is a fellow CMC member and its Joint Staff Department chief, responsible for overseeing PLA joint operations, training and combat readiness.
STINGING CRITICISM AGAINST ZHANG, LIU
The editorial framed the case as a vindication of Xi’s long-running anti-corruption campaign within the armed forces, calling the investigation a “major achievement” and urging officers and soldiers to maintain absolute obedience to the party centre, the CMC and Xi.
Beyond the headline charge of corruption, the PLA Daily editorial levelled a sweeping set of political accusations against Zhang and Liu, portraying their alleged misconduct as a fundamental threat to the party’s control of the military.
The editorial said the two men had “gravely betrayed the trust and expectations” of the party leadership, accusing them of “seriously fostering and exacerbating political and corruption-related problems” that weaken the Communist Party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces and endanger the party’s governing foundations.
It further blamed Zhang and Liu for damaging the authority and image of the CMC leadership, undermining the political and ideological foundations of unity within the ranks, and inflicting “immense damage” on the PLA’s political ecology and combat effectiveness.
Their actions, the editorial claimed, had caused “extremely negative consequences” for the party, the state and the military.
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